Across Florida, small businesses, business owners, and unemployed individuals will experience financial hardship because of the Covid Virus (COVID-19) . Many individuals are concerned about their ability to pay financial obligations such as credit card bills, mortgage payments, and bank loans. Some people will ask whether the unforseeability of the…
Some states, not Florida, have statutes that encourage asset protection trusts. These states’ statutes provide that if a debtor establishes an irrevocable trusts for their own benefit the assets that the debtor conveys to his trust are protected from his creditors. The trustmaker must reside or have significant assets in…
There are several types of trusts that are useful asset protection tools. Asset protection trusts include irrevocable trusts with spendthrift provisions, offshore trusts, and domestic asset protection trusts available in some states (other than Florida). I have been asked from time to time whether an asset protection trust will…
Many people who realize that their parents may need of long term nursing home care will consider whether their parents will qualify for Medicaid assistance. Medicaid benefits are available for people with minimal assets: only applicants with less than approximately $2,000 total assets qualify for Medicaid nursing home assistance. Clients…
The Florida homestead exemption is Florida’s best known asset protection law. The exemption becomes more complicated, and more limiting, when it interacts with certain provisions of federal law. One example is federal tax law pursuant to which the IRS may place a lien on a taxpayer’s homestead to collect taxes….
U.S. government creditors is more difficult because there are several federal laws that provide the government stronger collection remedies or laws that make it easier for the government to hold business owners liable for debts or transgressions of their business entities. An example is a client this month who was…
Some attorneys are concerned about advising clients about asset protection because the attorneys believe that it may be professionally unethical to help a client who is found to make a fraudulent transfer of his property. The Florida Bar’s rules of conduct make it unethical for an attorney to participate or…
A married judgment debtor can be unpleasantly surprise when a creditor has garnished an account, or levied upon property, titled in their own name. The debtor tries to convince the creditor or court that because he is married the property should be considered an exempt tenants by entireties asset owned…
Husband and wife each have previously been married with separate children. The husband’s estate plan names surviving spouse as personal representative. The will leaves a mortgaged property jointly to two of the husband’s children in a testamentary trust. . Two years after the husband’s death the children find they cannot…
In past years I’ve had several clients sued by members of their own family because the client allegedly had mismanaged or had improperly benefited from an estate or trust for which they were named as personal representative of trustee. This past week one of my clients who was the target…
